redwood shores, california. ceo of oracle ranked the highest paid executive in america for y. the proxies are flowing in, who are the top-paid ceos in this company and that should count as compensation? and it is 7:00 p.m. in oslo, norway. is there a bubble in the world's biggest market and will norway be the first to feel a giant burst. welcome to our show. this is "street signs." we appreciate you spending part of your day with us. i'm erin burnett. we begin with the overall markets. stocks are higher and transports really booming, literalliment seven companies have hit new one-year highs this week with many hitting levels we haven't seen since 2008. in a few case, when we say 2008, we mean pre-lehman brothers. joining us to talk about the transports, steve masoka. and our own bob pisani. bob, transports are up. people look at them as an

indicator for the economy. what does the transport index indicate to you about where the overall market is going? >> well, it's traditionally on important leading indicator. when you get a recovery in the cyclical end of things, transporters are the ones that respond because they ship goods immediately. when the transports hit a new high at the same time the dow industrials hit a new high, it triggers dow theory. and that's a bullish sign for the overall market. steve, fedex, i don't know if you listened on the call this morning. i read the published account. they were quite bullish on the overall economy. they said the recovery is broadening out. and that's a very good sign for a company like fedex. >> that's absolutely right. and i think not only is the economy improving in the early part of the improvement in the company, productivity is very high. the one thing that's been lagging is employment. and employment is a cost for all

these companies. as business improves, as they do more with fewer people, we end up with a lot of very good corporate profitability. just came off an earning season where over 80% of the companies beat their estimates. that's all very good news for the stock market and it's starting to show in the price of stocks. >> steve, did you notice that fedex went out of their way to say they're reinstating bringing back the compensation cuts they had? they cut the 401(k) out and all the bonuses in the last year. they're bringing it back. they said their people deserve it because they've worked hard and i agree with them. they said there will be impact on earnings, stocks getting hit a little bit. but that's good news. paying their people more. that's going to show up as an economic plus as well. >> well, as employment improves, clearly that's an economic plus. the perverse effect, though, of paying people more is that it lowers your profitability and that's why the stock got hit. >> we're working -- it's people

working for themselves, not the stock price. don't you think it's good news that there's more money in people's pockets at least, the hard-working people over at fedex? >> absolutely, bob. but at the end of the day, the reason the stock went down is it does have an impact on profitability. i agree with you. the more people that we put to work, the better the economy is going to be. >> and, steve, one final point, you took a look at a bunch of the transports. one stands out at its best level since april 1991. and that's autozone which should say something about the economy, too, shouldn't it? >> well, yes, it does. but once again, autozone also benefits from the fact that we're coming out of a recession and a lot of people were repairing their older cars rather than buying new cars. so autozone is an early indicator. it's one of the companies that does well first for that very reason. >> fair point. i guess we'll leave it on ford which is back to levels not seen since february of 2005. maybe that's the new cars being bought.

bob, steve, thanks very much. we appreciate it. we'll keep an eye on the transports. right now, they are higher. an early read on executive payout shows that ceo bonuses took a little bit of a hit in 2009. we're going to get into these numbers. but first, we want to go to mary thompson for the details. >> a new report suggests not only for ceo bonuses smaller last you're, fewer ceos received them. equilar saying the median bonus fell to just over $812,000. performance-based bonuses dropped 10.3%. and discretionary cash bonuses off 20.5%. equilar looked at the proxies filed by 232 companies whose fiscal years run from the end of june to the end of december. among those firms, tech ceos saw their bonuses drop the most. service ceos, the only ones with higher at 21%.

and consumer ceos got the biggest median pay out. health care median ceo bonus, the second largest. financial services ceo dz, their payout jumped from 2000 to 2008 to over $575,000. but remember this is an early read. of those 232 firms, those with fiscal years ending before december 31st all paid smaller bonuses. those with fiscal years ending on december 31st which is basically most of the companies actually paid higher bonuses suggesting when all the other proxies were reviewed, ceo bonuses may have actually increased last year. we'll be waiting. >> thank you, mary. so do the headlines tell the whole story when mary talks about bonuses? take at&t's randall stevenson. his compensation doubled in 2009. we'll save the number for just a moment.

but according to at&t, most of the surge was due to deferred compensation. they think the headline number is misleading. joining us, michael corkly and robert miller. appreciate having both of you with us. we'll get to the top three in just a moment. but mary was talking about financial services companies and their bonuses as part of her report. michael, let's start with you. who are the three highest-paid bank ceos? i will give away part of the secret. lloyd blankfind is not on the list. >> that's right. this whole beginning of this year, everyone is focused on blankfind if some of the lesser-known ceos out there are the ones getting the most money this year. ken chenault of american express making $17.4 million. john stumpf who appears to be the highest-paid bank ceo, $21.3

million. >> and jamie diamond. >> yes but he didn't take any cash. it's all stock. both chenault and stumpf have a pretty sizable cash -- >> why do you think that is? why not? they had a good year. that could be a fair argument to make. but paying cash right now is not a popular thing to do. these are financial ceos you would think be under scrutiny. why did ken chenault do it? >> it's a good question. goldman sachs had a record year. and lloyd blankfind took all stock and only $9 million of it. there's a lesson here that if your name isn't a household name like chenault might not be on main street and certainly not stumpf, you might have some leeway here. some of these boards may have a leeway to pay these guys -- granted, it's less than the boom years but more than dimon who's

running one of the biggest banks in the world. >> robert miller, now let's get to the top three paid ceos in america. i want to emphasize the returns are not yet in. they might be lucky enough to get off this list. let's take a look at the top three. larry ellison is number one. then ray irani, he's the ceo of occidental petroleum. and then at&t's randall stevenson. how did they get here? >> they run very large companies and so people who run very large companies are paid more than people who run smaller companies. the other thing is the amount they're paid tends to be reflected in how well the companies are doing. so that's really the answer to the question.

>> so when the stock price goes up -- i'm sure at&t would make the argument their earnings were up 26% and they had a lot of people sign up for service. so that's why they would do things well. no doubt a lot of people would say, but at&t still has to deal with a lot of customer dissatisfaction. >> well, ultimately they're concerned about the bottom line. ultimately they're concerned about the value of the company and how that's going to change. and ultimately they're concerned about how well they think -- the board's thinking these people are managing their companies. >> and so let's talk about how they get there. when you look at those overall numbers to the point that michael was making about cash, let's just take randall stevenson since at&t did come out and respond, they're trying to say a lot of this is deferred compensation, his pension. so it's not really fair to count it. is it fair to exclude pension value from ceo packages? >> pension value is certainly part of the compensation that ceos get, no doubt about that. i think the argument is whether or not it should have been counted this year or last year.

so that's probably where the argument is being waged at this point. >> michael, what's your point of view on that? at&t's coming out and saying, it's not fair. sit fair or not? how much of this current value of the pensions that counts in his $29 million this year, is it fair to say he's really going to get? >> it's all in the eyes of the beholders. that was initially proposed to get rid of that metric to the board as a proposal, the at&t board, to get rid of that as an annual measure of compensation and the board rejected it this year. even at&t seems to agree this is how you measure compensation. i think it's a big part of how they're paid. we tend to look at things year by year and year over year. but i think it's completely fair to include it. >> it's completely fair to include it. okay. so what is your bet either one of you, when we're done proxy reporting season and we're obviously near the middle of it,

are e we going to have any other surprise, any other sectors we should watch? what interested to me, of the top three, a tech ceo, an oil ceo and a telecom ceo. there was no banker on that list. >> i think the key here is none of those industries were bailed out by taxpayers so therefore their pay is not a particularly hot political issue this year. and i think that's the difference. the banks did very, very well in 2009, as we know, and yet they're on the whole being paid less as your report suggests than some of these other ceos. it's all about politics as other industries aren't on the political hot seat the way the banks were. and that's the difference. >> do you think, robert miller, that -- do you have an issue with any of these three? larry ellison at $85 million. he was the founder of oracle, so he is perhaps different. ray irani and randall stephenson, he's just the ceo, not the founder of at&t.

do you have any issue with any of those three getting the numbers they got? >> not at all. and i also think that the main determine of ceo pay is really the market forces. i don't really agree that it's the political climate that's affecting ceo pay that much. there may be some in the banking industry, yes. there could have been some tradeoff between this year and last year. but for the most part, these people are being paid as much as they are because that's what it takes to keep them and get them to work hard. >> all right, thank you very much. we appreciate it. michael and robert. and viewers, please let us know what you think. are they worth it in general or any of the names that we discussed, larry ellison, ray irani, randall stephenson. e-mail us. we'll share your e-mails. jim cramer will be weighing in on these as well. next on the show, nearly a week after the nor'easter slammed this part of the country, thousands are still in the dark. it's costing millions of

dollars. why is the nation's power grid so fragile? can anything be done to fix it? we're going to talk to the ceo of one of the nation's biggest electric utilities next. plus streen up the books or keep the housing market going? the federal housing administration is on a desperate mission to save money. will their belt-tightening crush the spring housing market?

what does the massive power outages say about the state of the electric utility industry in this country? are utility companies invested in infrastructure to meet future demand? what about keeping the lights on? john roe is excelon chairman and ceo. thanks for taking the time. i know you're at a conference in washington where spring is in full bloom. well, here in new york where it's in feel bloom. feels a little bit like the south today. we have a lot of homes in this area, in the tri-state region, still out of power. a lot of you operate in the mid-atlantic. i don't know that any of your customers are still lacking power. but plenty of people are. why is it that this keeps happening after we had a blkout years ago and the grid doesn't seem to have improved? >> well, in fact, the grid keeps improving all the time.

but, remember, the grid is basically still poles or towers and wires. and when you have really bad storms, those things get knocked out. we are pleased that we have our customers in the philadelphia area back. and this storm didn't hit the chicago area. so we're in good shape at the moment. but we got in good shape by spending almost $1.5 billion a year in strengthening our grid for the past ten years. and we can still get knocked down for a day like other people can or two days because it's still dealing with a structure of towers and wires that's vulnerable to some kinds of weather conditions. >> i know a lot of the switchers and the things that make the grid work are separate company, there are companies that do

that, transmission companies. . but when you talk about $1.5 billion a year put into the grid s that an overall number? if you had to say who fundamentally is paying for the grids, who is it? >> well, in the end, if the businesses work, customers pay for them. if customers don't pay for things, the businesses go bankrupt and nothing happens. but the number i used, $1.5 billion a year was for con ed and companies -- you can multiply those by a factor of something like 20 across the country for that period. and here in new york, con ed has some of the highest reliability in the country. it also had some of the highest delivery charges as a result of paid for that. yes, the customers pay. and if the customers are willing to pay more, we can harden the systems even more. >> and so we're looking at $35

billion. it goes to the customer. that doesn't seem unfair to some. what about your company in particular? you have 20% of the nuclear capacity in this country and i know about 92% of your energy -- your electricity is derived from nuclear power. do you think that we need more nuclear in this country? do you need any changes in regulation to open up new plans, nobody seems to be able to do that. or are you fine with things the way they are? >> well, yes, i think we need more nuclear plants in this country but not fast because with today's low natural gas prices and with opportunities for energy efficiency, i think there are other things we can do first in most cases that are more economical. but i'm delighted that in the southeast, the southern company is actually starting to build nuclear plants because we need

to see what we can do with six or eight before we try to build 10 or 20. but what's really important to me here is that we make this a good business for our customers. we need to get the economics right. and in illinois and pennsylvania where most of our companies' work is, the economics say that on the margin, upgrade the existing plants, get a little more energy out of them, work on efficiency and build gas when you have to. that's the low-cost solution for the customer. >> thank you very much, sir. we appreciate it. i don't know whether we were taking a power hit to that or something else. but irony always strikes in the rays right places. just ahead, palm earnings out after the close. why the palms are really sweating at one of the top private equity firms. national car rental? that's my choice.

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closing in on half past the hour, we want to look at a couple of other headlines we're focused here on "street signs."

president obama signed the $17.5 billion jobs bill into law today. he says it's exactly the medicine a recovering economy needs. >> a consensus is forming that partly because of the necessary and often unpopular measures we took over the past year, our economy is now growing again and we may soon be adding jobs instead of losing them. the jobs bill i'm signing today is intended to help accelerate that process. >> and it's the case that could set the bar when it comes to copyright protection on the internet. three years' worth of sealed documents have now been unsealed in the billion-dollar lute by viacom against google's youtube. here's a few of the revelations. viacom tried repeatedly to buy youtube. viacom details the hundreds of millions of dollars youtube founders received as part of the google buyout and says that enormous amounts of money is what encouraged them to break copyright laws by posting

unauthorized viacom content on their website. and palm is set to report third quarter profits after the close. those numbers, you can see palm shares are trading higher. interesting palms avoided some of the big lawsuits out there given its own operating system. and what a difference a year make for palm? this year, it's been a different story than last year, a story of not so beautiful sort. particularly for palm's biggest backer, elevation partners. bureau chief jim goldman has the details in san jose. i say it without that sort of a phlegm in my throat -- >> yeah, the mark haynes throat. we can talk about the mark haynes throat. let's talk about elevation partners. this is the firm run by roger mcnamee. this was an early and vocal backer in palm. while it seemed like a savvy

investment this time a year ago, the firm has suffered a nauduating reversal of fortunes. palm shares rode the wave last year. new handset, good operating system and good reviews for a company that desperately needed them. but interest began to wane toward the end of the years and carrier partners unable to sell the phone began slowing or stopping the new orders. brutal compensation in the smart phone market and you've got a 1-2 punch that is staggering palm and its shares. and elevation partners has been on the hook in a big way. the company bought 25% of palm way back in 2007, valuing the company then at about $1.30 billion. elevation owns about 67.8 million common shares, and just last september, elevation bought another 2.2 million shares at $16.25. today, palm's market cap teeters around $900 million.

and lead elevation partner roger mcnamee personally bought 123,000 shares last september at that same $16.25 share a price. palm today is trading around 5.67 a share. some analysts suggest the spike is ahead of likely betting on palm being acquired more than about the earnings. tough days for elevation. palm reports at the close and there is much more on palm and that viacom/youtube case you were mentioning on the blog, techcheck.cnbc.com. >> thank you very much, jim. one final story today, a sad one, apple director and turnaround specialist jerry york, also known for his investments and career in the auto industry, has died after suffering a brain aneurysm on tuesday night. he was 71. he was a former chief financial officer at ibm and at chrysler. a veteran of the auto industry known for making big bets.

most recently he was known as the choice to sit on gm's board as part of the aattempt to take over gm. cramer is up next, plus we ask if there is a bubble in the biggest market in the world. why oslo may be flashing code red.

hey! >> hey. >> how are you? >> all right. how about you? >> i'm good. a lot to talk about. you have mcdonald's on your list. we'll talk about one of their things after this break. let's start with the ceo compensation. we're getting a whole lot of e-mail about it. this is a tough one. this whole issue of pensions. >> right. >> what do you think? >> well, one of the things that i've seen, having been involved in compensation committee discussions, a lot of times what you're doing is looking at the comps and saying, look, the guy at this company, verizon, gets this and the guy at qwest gets this and we've got to figure out what the guy at at&t should get. and then it's done in a better moment when people are thinking pretty bullishly.

and then things go bad. your package suddenly looks like everybody's house. so what i think you have is this kind of like amazing system in this country where all the ceos end up being overpaid if their stocks don't go up. >> right. it's like woe be gogo at&t is a good example. the case they make is, earn ugs up 26%, we added the second most wireless subscribers during a quarter in our history. think of how many more wireless subscribers they could have added if they didn't have a dropped call problem. >> they all use the same compensation consultants and the compensation consultants go to the compensation committees and the committees say, here's what you can afford. and the comp committee says, we're not full-time people, we work at a lot of companies. this is what our ceos are doing, too. so there's this broad bias in favor of giving these guys of money regardless of what you, the shareholder, get.

and i think that's what we're really -- >> that's the problem. you look at pretty much any of these companies we've highlighted. what do you do to stop this? in this case, at&t, right -- they do make the argument, look at verizon -- they make that to us. what about -- what do we do with boards here? it seems to come back to, it would be nice if the ceos stood up and took leadership. but why aren't the boards doing their jobs? >> the way that a board works is your compensation committee tends to be run by people who are not that sensitive to what the shareholder has made. but they are sensitive to what the consultants tell them because they're just too overburden zmrd how do we let this happen? aren't we at a point after this crisis where we wouldn't be seeing headlines like this but we are? >> a lot of deals were cut during a different period. a lot of deals were cut when it was conceivable to see the kind of declines we've had.

i think what it may be up to at various times is for ceos to say, look, i feel like i've been overcompensated. don't laugh. what is vic saying? he's doing the right thing at citi. i think sometimes there has been to be shame. >> that's what i think upsets people because that appears to be what you just don't see often enough. >> no, you don't. and we both know if you don't do a good job for your shareholders, you really should be saying to yourself and to your family, look, i know i'm entitled to x and i know legally i'm into it told x. but after what i've seen, it's just not right. we both expect that to happen. somehow that seems to be panglossian. >> i did expect that to happen. we were looking at ellison and irani and stephenson but had it happened at at&t, a lot of people would be slapping him on the back and really proud. >> remember, these guys all make a huge amount of money versus

everybody else in the country and they probably have tremendous savings and they can afford to skip a year, so to speak. i think it would be honorable. but it doesn't have to be because it's not legal -- i mean, legally they're entitled. it's just you'd like to think that, well, perhaps they'd put themselves in the shareholders' shoes and say, our stocks are down 7% for the year, we haven't made any money, so i'm going to forego that until a better time. i think we'd all say, that's sensible, that's right, that's the right thing to do for a rich person to be able to say, whoa, maybe i've gotten too much here. we never see it so it really does bother us. >> no, we didn't see it. we didn't see it in this case. it's upsetting. >> it is upsetting, particularly because -- >> it makes you feel disappointed. remember when you're mother wasn't angry at you, when she was disappointed in you. >> yeah, you just sulk away. how about when she says, i'm going to tell your father? that's just a recipe for disaster, when your father gets

home. then there's that hour and 40 minutes where you're dreading it. >> where is the father here? >> there is no father here. what there really is just a overweaning sense of entitlement that we both feel is wrong. >> let's get the trades. we wanted jim to comment on this because we've done the work on these numbers. >> you and i feel exactly the same. if we were off camera, we'd be saying the same thing on camera. >> we were e-mailing about it. this is about our e-mail conversation. >> holy cow, people are angry about the dropped calls, the stock hasn't done well but because of some earnings per share, the guy just takes it and we were hoping that they're going to send us an e-mail saying, i feel awful and i've made a lot of money and this year it's going to haiti. i don't know, something! >> that would have been a good idea. >> i know, i've suggested that to a number of ceos. and they're lived because that's what i'm making my contribution

for. >> let's get to some trades and let's get to the two dow companies. dupont. >> good presentation today. >> biggest gainer on the dow. >> i've gone through that presentation. i was worried about patent expirations because they have a drug that's going into patent expiration. but they're turning to more of an emerging market company than i would have thought. go to the website, call up the presentation and you'll feel better about dupont. tremendous earning story here. tremendous earnings power. >> let's talk about corning. you believe -- by the way, corning, not just the stuff you eat off of. television screens, 3d tvs is corning. we did a survey, most people were telling us, no way, no way too soon am i buying a 3d tv. >> fads are fads. but when you go and see -- how many people saw "avatar." you would almost think it's more than there were people.

people saw it two and three times. demand from pcs, demand for tvs is a little bit more than people thought. the stock hasn't done anything in a long time. i think it's worth a second look. >> mr. cramer, thank you. >> we agree. we both can't figure it out. it seems wrong to us. >> that's right. and viewers, let us know how it seems to you. we'll be sharing some e-mails in a couple of moments. but tonight, jim has the ceo of city telecom on "mad money." and jim is on "kudlow" tonight. they get along well but it was a saucy show. we'll see what they serve up tonight. up next, the big mac, how this juicy little morsel could tell us where the next bubble could burst. anncr vo: with the new geico glovebox app...

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the big mac index, this index, if you haven't seen it before measures how much people living in different countries pay for a big mac. so it makes the exchange range theory a little more digestible. mcdonald's recently left iceland because it couldn't make money there. before the iceland koner crashes taking the entire economy along with it, iceland's currency was the most overvalued against the u.s. dollar in the world, prophetic, huh? what's the index saying now? here with insight is steven gallo. we appreciate having you with us. we'll unveil the most overvalued

currencies, according to the big mac index. the top three, norway, switzerland and the euro. and norway, according to this index, could be 90% plus overvalued. i know a lot of people betting on norway. is norway going to have a problem? >> it's one of the more solid currencies out there. but in terms of appreciating significantly in the very short term versus key currencies like the euro, sterling and the dollar, you want to place your bets elsewhere. the australian dollar or the canadian dollar because norway has already completed a large degree of its monetary tightening. it was one of the first central banks in 2009 to start tightening, removing more than just emergency level of accommodations. the divergence trade has already benefited to a large degree. you want to be looking elsewhere

if you want to play that divergence trade. >> where elsewhere would you look? the thing that norway has that iceland doesn't have is oil. and iceland may have its own sort of energy trade. but one thing that makes people feel good about norway is their reserves and the commodity there. >> certainly. >> your buys are not norway but do have that link. >> certainly. i think from the standpoint of a currency investor or even a short-term speculator, a fruitful exercise to dig into in the near term is to try and pick out currencies that are structurally sound. what i mean by currencies that are structurally sound, general three pointers. the first, they have a very benign or even nonexistent external and fiscal imbalance. they have some kind of link to raw materials, commodities, precious metals, something of that nature. and the third is that they're engaging -- their central banks are engaging in a degree of monetary tightening that's over and above just the simple removal of monetary

accommodations like what the fed did with the rate early in 2010. those are the three pointers. the one caveat i would give to viewers is even though you have fundamentals working in favor of these currencies more so now than in 2009, they are still linked to the restriction risk-on-risk-off trade f you get a larger degree of monetary tightening in china, they're going to suffer to a degree. >> you mentioned china. let's get to the bottom of the list. the most undervalued currency versus the dollar, it is the chinese yuan, according to the big mac index. 49%. and pretty closely followed by thailand and malaysia. it appears with the exception of egypt, the currencies most undervalued according to the big mac index are all in asia. would you buy those and obviously china would be difficult to do that with. but whow would you trade it?

>> emerging markets are the key. they're the way to go. they're the way really to trade that weakening trend that at least i foresee happening or occurring in the dollar over the next two to three years alone. this conversation right now is far too short to start speculating on what the fair value for the chinese yuan is and where policymakers would like to bring it over the next year or so. one of the major flaws of the measure of fair values is it's based on historical rates. we're in an era where we're seeing inflation rates diverge on a big way across the globe. >> especially last year being such a bizarre year with the crisis, right? it's hard to gauge off that. >> sure. absolutely. >> what's your single best, if you had to do a currency trade, it would be? >> i think there's still more room for a pair like sterling to move lower. 160 to 162 range there. euro, there's a possible 143 to

145. we like the canadian dollar, canadian dollar, there's room more more downside. early bank of canada tightening by the summer of 2010 isn't out of the question. we like these trades linked to these structurally solid currencies like the canadian dollar and like the aus. these are some of the things you want to avoid. >> thank you very much. we appreciate your taking this time. just trying to see what's the most perfectly valued currency versus the united states. interesting, according to the big mac index, it's japan. and next, an exponential blow for the housing market.

we are deep in the midst of spring housing season and about

to face yet another head wind. changes at the fha, the federal housing administration, which is serving one-third of the mortgage market could really matter for spring sales. joining us from washington with a special interview is diana olick. diane in >> yes, the fha is implementing may 1st, the many changes. raising the up front premium for sellers and base down payments based on the fico scores and with congressional approval double the premium. so joining us from the fha is the commissioner david stevens and thank you for coming to join us again as usual. the fico changes alone according to your own numbers would take 6% of your current borrows out of eligibility, and maybe that is not a lot, but it is on top of all of the other changes. how will losing these borrows in the current housing market affect the housing recovery? >> well, the policies in total take out about 6% of the

borrowers from the previous volume that we looked at in previous years and the 6% that will no longer qualify for an fha loan has a cumulative delinquency rate of 31%. so what fha is doing is to make minor changes in terms of impact to the overall market, but taking tout borrowers the least sustainab sustainable. when you think about home borrowers, you have to make sure that people buy the homes they can afford is the most prudent thing for you to do. >> but the mandate of fha is to help that home borrow who may not be able to borrow, but with higher premiums and the fico regulation, aren't you pushing more people out of the market? >> well, fha is still the number one place for people to buy a home with as little as 3.5% down. you know we have been under scrutiny for the down payment, but the best way to protect homeownership in the future is when you put down a 3.5%

payment, you will have a credit score to sustain the home over the long term, and that sustainability is what we are looking for in the recovery. >> for the fha to get healthy and keep it healthy as it is right now is to get the good quality borrowers in the door, and half of the borrowers for fha were first-time home buyers and a lot of that is because of the first-time tax credit which we are about to lose, and how do you get the quality first-time home buyers back in the market? >> well, to be clear. 80% of fha purchasers were first-time home buyers, and we were only half of the national home market. today, home prices are near the lows and we have seen a hum ber -- number of months of showing the stability in the housing market, and interest rates near record lows, so we think that at least barring some new news that

would cause some disruption in the markets, we think that the housing markets is beginning to show signs of recovery and first time homeuyers are a critical part of it. >> you took out the anti-flipping rules to try to get the investors back, which is surprising to some, because you are trying to take the risk out £%ufha and by suspendinge flipping rules, you are putting risk back into the fha, are you not? >> the reason for the anti-flipping rule to make it clear is that that was a rule that meant that if you bought a foreclosure with an fha loan, you could not resell it within a 90-day period, but look, today, the prior to the change, people could hold on to them for 90 days and sell it on day 91, but our rules are responsible and this is what it will do, create stability in communities hit by foreclosures and ensure that the homes that are in foreclosure that need repair will have somebody who is able to come in and make the repair and sell them. >> sorry, we have to cut it short there. commissioner dave stevens.

back to you, erin. >> yes, next your thoughts on the ceo compensation, and are they worth it? the cnbc trend tracker live databoard is brought to you by the cme group. this is not more benefits at greater cost to your company insurance. this is not how does it fit in my company's budget insurance. this is help protect and care for your employees at no cost to your company insurance. with aflac, your employees pay only for the coverage they want or need. and, the cost to you - nothing at all. if all you know about us is... aflac! ...then you don't know quack. to find out why more businesses provide aflac, visit getquack.com

camel racing in saudi arabia nets millions of dollars for the winners and one of the races beginning today. but there is maybe a sad side to the sport. according to reports, many of the camels are smuggled in from pakistan and pakistan is saying that there is a shortage there, and they are a beast of burden and sort of horse and camel in one. crucial for a country. pakistan says they need 3 million camels for sustaining, but now thanks to smuggling there are only 700,000 camels. so now, is it worth it for ceo compensation. norman says governance in the country is broken and people will continue to be paid outrageous amounts for success of failure. this problem need los be addressed by congress as billions of dollars are wasted annually. and ed says if stockholders and board of directors approve

salary packages, then they are worth it, and that is how kapt tallialism works. while these execs are entitled to the bonuses, it would be be honorable if they would just write them off. that sort of standard is what we need. and then do you feel like athletes should give back their salaries when their teams don't win? should actors and actresses give back sales when they don't win? if not, why should you expect business leaders to do so? so, you have to deal with a little bit of the own risks that you took. at any rate, thank you for all of the thoughts. we will continue to follow it as the proxies flow in with the reporting season. the final hour of trading is coming your way with the "closing bell" with simon and maria. will it be 8 for 8 for the dow? the winning streak continues in the homestretch with all of the major averages at around 18-month highs. is now the time to put more money back into the